$599,000: NIH Studied Breast Cancer Risk in Transgender Men on Testosterone. Cancer Is Not Ideology. DOGE Terminated It.

Transgender men — individuals with female reproductive anatomy who were assigned female at birth — retain breast tissue unless they have undergone mastectomy (“top surgery”). Breast cancer risk in this population is incompletely understood: testosterone therapy suppresses estrogen and may affect breast tissue differently than in cisgender women, but long-term epidemiological data are limited. The NIH National Cancer Institute funded $599,000 in research examining breast cancer risk factors, screening adherence, and outcomes in transgender men — a medically necessary question with direct screening guideline implications.

The American Cancer Society and major oncology organizations have noted that transgender men are underrepresented in breast cancer screening guidelines and that clinicians lack data on appropriate screening intervals and risk stratification for this population. Several documented cases of late-stage breast cancer diagnoses in transgender men have been attributed to lack of appropriate screening recommendations. The terminated NIH grant was generating the outcomes data to inform those guidelines.